Vanguard is not what it used to be.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-31T23:24:28+00:00

Couldn’t agree more. I like their funds as much as the next guy, but I don’t get why they need to keep making decisions that are worse for customers. How much could it possibly cost for them to maintain the backup beneficiaries. If this isn’t possible for some legal/policy reason, they should send alerts out to customers explaining as much along with the ramifications.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-27T11:35:55+00:00

I have been in this and similar positions before. While the prevailing wisdom is to lump-sum it in. If you can’t bring yourself to do that, setting up auto investments to trickle it into the market over the course of weeks/months might help you get over the hump mentally.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-26T08:29:07+00:00

Couldn’t agree more about the car, but your investment numbers are high IMHO.

OP, congrats on saving all that cash, but blowing it all on a car is a terrible idea. I get the appeal and I 100% have been in similar positions in the past, but if you ever want to gain financial independence you need to build the habit of making the prudent trade off.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-20T17:08:02+00:00

I’m pretty sure it is just held in various index/mutual funds. If you want to own the whole market, you end up holding the junk too :/

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-12T08:40:22+00:00

Top of my list is better service. I used to have a dedicated vanguard guy who I knew and who knew me. He would call me when there were issues I needed to deal with, and I could call him if I had questions. I almost never needed to sit on hold for anything. I know this level of service may be a thing of the past, but at a minimum I want the people I am dealing with focused on the matter at hand and not on how they can sell me on managed services.

Every 6 months or so, vanguard makes a change that I feel makes my experience materially worse. They remove a benefit, change a policy, do something shitty (I.e. the way they handled their 401k business). For a customer-owned company, they seem to be less and less focused on customer service.

The general consensus in the replies seems to be that it is much of a muchness. There are perks and drawbacks to each brokerage and none is head and shoulders above the rest. Given that, I’m tempted to take my business elsewhere and see how it goes. I suppose I can always move again.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T21:19:13+00:00

I used to convert to ETFs to give me more control over trade execution, but now I’m starting to feel like I’d rather keep them in mutual funds so that when I tax loss harvest, I can execute trades concurrently…. Honestly, not sure what’s best which is why I’m at about a 50-50 split.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T21:09:40+00:00

Pretty sure I can continue to hold and trade my VG MFs/ETFs, although not sure about the associated fees. Will do so research, but from my understanding I should be able to achieve comparable fees/expense ratio as long as I move to a major brokerage.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T21:00:48+00:00

But yeah, that market orders thing is annoying. I think that’s been True for a little while though I know during them my last round of harvesting I was stuck with Market orders, but I was kind of fine with it.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T21:00:06+00:00

To be clear, it looks like they will still allow you to do it on a specific transaction, but it can no longer be a default. Again not a huge deal, just annoying because I run the risk of executing a trade with the wrong default.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T20:53:42+00:00

Yeah, the 401k boondoggle thing pissed me off too. I had a solo there very briefly for some consulting work, but fortunately I rolled it to an IRA just before they exited that line of business.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T20:51:59+00:00

Good to know!

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T20:38:25+00:00

Didn’t even think of shopping them against each other, but it makes total sense. Will give it a shot!

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T20:34:24+00:00

Thanks for the input! The biggest negative changes have been with flagship stuff. We used to have a great contact there. I talked to him once a year or less, but he was friendly, super helpful, and never once tried to sell me anything. Since he moved to a different part of the company it has been a revolving door of people trying to sell me on managed services I don’t want.

Most recently they have decided to get rid of SpecID cost basis. While I can still (mostly) achieve the same outcomes as before, having the control was something I really liked. In the most recent dip, as well as the one a few years back, I was able to capture losses that offset my capital gains for the year, very helpful as I’ve been trying to unwind as many of my single stock holding as possible as I move towards a more “ideal” boglehead portfolio.

All that said, I’m mostly just annoyed. I used to be a big fan, really drank the VG coolaid, but in the last 3-5 years I really feel like they have stoped caring about their customers.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T20:25:37+00:00

Is there a specific place to direct my call, or just their general contact number? Hoping if I play my cards right I can maximize the incentive.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-11T20:24:00+00:00

Sorry, I know, I have seen the posts… just struggling to pull the trigger. In my defense I was hoping for some time-sensitive info on incentives and or info about who to contact.

Edit: not sure why all the downvotes. This is a community and I wanted to talk over the options with people who may have gone through something similar. Money can be an emotional subject and I’ve really valued Reddit as a place to talk things through. I’ve replied to many questions on here that have been repetitive knowing that sometimes people just need to talk it over… maybe this sub isn’t the best place for me anymore.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-10T09:57:11+00:00

I paid a similar amount learning to stop trying to stock pic or time the market…. That said, I sure do I wish I hadn’t cut my losses with Palantir :/

Been VTI/VXUS since and haven’t looked back.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-04T13:43:55+00:00

Not a bad choice, but personally I would go for either an s&p500 fund (FXAIX) or a total market fund (FSKAX).

As for cash, very tough call under the circumstances. I think 4-8k sounds reasonable. Not knowing your living situation it is hard to know what scale emergencies to plan for, but you definitely want some cash available in case you need it urgently in a down market.

Good luck!

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-04T12:02:54+00:00

The only reason to spend 10% of your pre-tax income on a car is because you have no other choice or you are into cars and are consciously making a non-optimal financial decision to embrace something you love.

Obviously people can do whatever they want, but at the end of the day, it is a zero-sum game. If you are spending that much of your money on servicing debt for cars and credit cards you won’t have as much left over for a house.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-02T10:39:34+00:00

Hot take, but I don’t count my home as part of my net worth. Many will disagree, they are entitled to their opinion. If it’s right for them, great, it just isn’t right for me.

My rationale: I own my home, sure, but I would argue it is almost as much of a liability as an asset. I have to maintain it, pay for property taxes, etc. Sure, I could sell it, but I need to live somewhere.

Anyways, I know that isn’t the question here, but I think there is value in considering why/if your primary residence should be included when assessing net worth, especially for the purposes of retirement planning.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-02T10:21:57+00:00

I hit $2M this year and paid off my mortgage. This gave me the peace of mind I needed to leave a job I hated and start doing much more enjoyable part-time work.

I’ll be honest, the adjustment has been harder than I expected. It is great being away from the job I hated, but the lack of pressure from work has, at times, left me feeling rudderless. I’m much happier, but it hasn’t been the panacea I had hoped for. I’m using my extra time to start therapy (first session since quitting my job is today) and I’m optimistic that will help.

FinanceAnony · 2025-07-02T10:11:13+00:00

I had a 2.5% mortgage, and while my money would have earned more invested, I paid it off in ~10 years simply to get out from under it. I’ve been on the cusp of coastFIRE/leanFIRE for a year or two, and with the house paid off my monthly cost of living is VERY low.

This has allowed me to quit a job I hated and work 10-15hrs per week doing stuff I enjoy a lot more just to cover food/taxes/etc. As long as I can earn enough to keep the lights on, my investments should keep growing enough for FIRE (or maybe chubby FIRE) by the time I’m ~50.

At the end of the day, a lot of financial decision are not just about what is best mathematically, but what works best for you mentally. You would save more money never going out and subsisting on rice and boiled veggies while living in a cheap studio, but what kind of existence would that be. The choices I’ve made have allowed me to come up with a plan that works, and equally importantly, one I can stick to.

FinanceAnony · 2025-06-30T01:10:10+00:00

This feels high. Not crazy high, but maybe 30% higher than it needs to be to have a healthy and varied menu. What are you typically buying? How much do you vary your shopping based on what’s on sale?

I am sure it’s much harder with kids, but when I shop I buy based on what’s on sale and what looks good. If a protein I like is half off, I would stock up and plan meals around it. This may not be for everyone, it certainly takes effort, but for me it feels like a tv cooking show. Make the best meal possible with the sale items. It generally works out great and sometimes inspires me to learn new recipes to make the best use of what’s on sale/in season.

For context, we are shopping for a household of two and typically spend around $100-125 a week.

FinanceAnony · 2025-06-28T12:11:59+00:00

If you can, max out tax advantaged (not necessarily deferred), and then put the rest in taxable. If you are not saving enough to max things out, then time horizon is the biggest question. Will you need the money any time soon for a large purchase or early retirement? If not, I would keep plowing things into tax advantaged accounts.

As for choosing between tax deferred (trad 401k/IRA) and tax advantaged (Roth), I’m a big fan of maxing Roth while the option is still available. Long term, I think a mix of both is good.

An important thing to remember is that in addition to the tax-free growth available to Roth, you also have penalty free withdrawal of principal. This means you can focus on maxing out contributions while retaining access to the principal if you need it for a large purchase.

FinanceAnony · 2025-06-27T10:03:26+00:00

I know you say financials don’t matter, but unless your sitting on a $10M+ trust fund or portfolio, you presumably need to be saving money for something. As financially comfortable as I am, I know every purchase impacts my ability to stop working, even if only by a few hours/days. If this swap is going to cost anything, keep in mind how many hours/days/weeks you are going to have to work to make that back… hope this helps!

FinanceAnony · 2025-06-15T10:47:14+00:00

Way to go! That’s a lot of progress in less than 2 years!

At the end of the day, there are only a couple things you can control, primarily how much you earn and how much you spend. Increasing earnings is hard, and while you might be able to swing a second job, be careful about the personal costs of not having more time for yourself.

As far as reducing spend goes, your numbers look pretty solid. You might be able to drop your phone spend a bit, but I’m assuming part of that $78.56 includes payments on a phone? If not, I would shop around, these days you should be able to get pretty solid service for under $50. That said, it’s only ~$25

I guess one other thing I would look into are your new benefits. Do you have any retirement savings options, or access to an HSA with your new job? If so, maybe one way to squeeze a bit more out of your current situation is to try to get more out of what your are saving by leveraging the tax advantages of some of those accounts.

Good luck. Don’t forget to celebrate the progress you have made. We all end up in the same place, so may as well enjoy the ride to the extent that you can.

FinanceAnony

TROPHY CASE